


Trapped

by emmram



Category: Spider-Man (Video Game 2018), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, h/c, mentor/mentee bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 11:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16491731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmram/pseuds/emmram
Summary: All Peter wanted to do was do a little bit of training with Miles–maybe swing around a bit; stop a burglary or two; MAYBE face a low-tier supervillain. Of course, the whole thing goes pear-shaped pretty spectacularly, but hey, at least they get some bonding time?





	Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> More Spider-Man PS4 fic! Inspiration has been hard to come by these last couple of years, and I’m just glad to be writing again. This fic has a pretty generic h/c premise and is more of an excuse to explore the Peter Parker/Miles Morales dynamic–I’m just really interested in seeing the mentee becoming a mentor. It’s also for this reason that I’ve incorporated some of the MCU continuity in this fic.
> 
> Warnings: Allusions to serious injury. SPOILERS for Spider-Man PS4 and Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Miles is crying.

That piece of information floats across Peter’s mind, as remote as a comment in the margins of his daily lab notes ( _Peter, unless you learn to draw clear hexagons, I can’t tell if we’re on the verge of an incredible bioengineering breakthrough, or about to create sentient slime. – Dr. O_ ), right until memory catches up with the rest of his rattled brain and he thinks: _holy shit, Miles is crying!_

Yeah, not a great sign. In fact, as far as indicators of superhero mentor/mentee bonding trips go, Peter would probably rate it between ‘getting the runs while in costume’ and ‘growing four extra arms out of the blue’ (Peter doesn’t want to talk about it). All Peter wanted to do was show Miles the ropes—or the ‘webs’ as it were (Miles still laughs at that every single time, so MJ can roll her eyes all she wants; Peter’s not going to stop), and really try and test the limits of Miles’ powers. He’s got a rough blueprint for Miles’ costume ready back at his apartment, and he’d wanted to surprise him with it later that evening, get his input and brainstorm over pizza and sodas.

Now, though—

“I know… this… looks scary,” Peter says. It’s starting to get noticeably harder to breathe, which, _wonderful_. “But… we’ll be out of here and I—I’ll be healed up in no time.”

The comment seems to startle Miles somewhat—enough, at least, that he stops crying. “Pete,” he starts, his voice climbing an octave with every word, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve got a metal rod rammed through your chest! With a building that’s about to collapse on us! My phone’s crushed! And I—” his voice falters. “I don’t know how to get us out.”

( _i don’t know what to do_ )

Peter feels a stab of pain entirely unrelated to the rod lodged in his chest. “Listen,” he says. “Take… take off my mask and put it on. There’s a—ugh, _god—_ a sensory patch right beneath the right ear. Press it and… it’ll connect you to Yu—Captain Watanabe.”

Miles doesn’t move for a long minute, and when Peter looks up and forces his eyes to focus, the kid looks like he’s been hit by a crate of puppies. Which is to say: pained, but weirdly delighted. “That explains a lot of things,” he says finally. “Like—a _lot_ of—”

“Miles!” Peter gasps.

“Right, right. Sorry.”

He shifts a little to lean forward and take Peter’s mask off. The building gives an ominous rumble, and for the first time Peter gets a good look at the dim little pocket that he and Miles are in, surrounded seemingly in all directions by heaving concrete. A little frisson of panic starts to crack its way across Peter’s mind, especially when Miles shifts even more in an attempt to get the mask. “Wait,” Peter breathes, “wait wait wait Miles just _wait_ —”

“Just about… got it!” Miles says, tugging on his mask. The building rumbles again, the rod in his chest shifts ever-so-slightly, and Peter thinks he screams, but he’s lost under a tidal wave of pain and then just—lost.

-

There’s a warm hand on his forehead, pressing gently. Peter wonders if he’s gotten sick again—it’s during these twilit, in-between moments, when he’s not quite awake and Aunt May’s mind isn’t quite there that she presses his forehead like she can will the fever away, like Peter might slip away if she isn’t holding him. Of course, he rarely gets sick anymore since becoming Spider-Man, and Aunt May is—

Aunt May is—

“Yuri say anything?” Peter whispers without opening his eyes.

He feels Miles jerk, and the hand disappears. It’s a pity—he kind of misses it. “Uh, yeah,” Miles says. “I talked to Captain Watanabe—and by the way, thanks for not telling her I exist; it took me three minutes to convince her that I wasn’t just some kid who picked up Spidey’s mask for the heck of it. Like—oh, hey, let me just pull on this mask that smells like sweat and breakfast burritos and call a _cop_ just so that I can be some sort of _troll_ —”

Peter wants to laugh, but they’re really running out of time. Also, you know. He’s impaled and he really, _really_ doesn’t want to move. “Miles.”

“Okay, okay, so—she says to stay put and that rescue teams are working on getting to us. Also the Rhino’s in custody and they’ve managed to get almost everybody else outside the, y’know. Danger zone.”

Peter cracks open an eye. “… danger zone?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said that this building is ready to collapse, Pete,” Miles tells him, staring at Peter’s chest. “Like—I’m too afraid to even _sneeze_ now.”

“I’ve made it out of collapsed buildings before.”

“Not when you’re skewered and losing blood like you’re trying to paint the floor with it, so. Uh. Don’t even think about it.” The tremor’s back in Miles’ voice and it occurs to Peter that this is probably the first the kid’s been up close to disaster since the day his father died.

“Hey,” Peter says, wishing he could _move_ , wishing he could put an arm around Miles’ shoulders, “I’m not gonna lie: the situation’s pretty bad, but we know what’s happening, and we know how to keep it from getting worse. And trust me, that’s not nothing.” He wants to add _you’re going to have to handle stuff where you don’t even have that_ but he can’t find the heart to lay that on this fifteen year old kid. Peter has absolutely no idea how Mr. Stark managed to send him on missions without twisting himself into knots all the way back when Peter was a teenager. (Peter knows the answer: he didn’t.)

(And _wow_ if thinking about Mr. Stark isn’t dropping his stomach another two inches—)

“Yeah. I mean—yeah, yeah. I know. And speaking of keeping things under control—” Miles finally meets Peter’s gaze. “I’ve rigged up a little something to stop blood loss and keep the uh, the rod in place.”

Peter lifts his head briefly and with great effort to catch a glimpse of webbing fashioned into a rudimentary tourniquet before he falls back. No wonder he was able to talk without gasping like just finished the Tour de France on a unicycle. ( _Okay, wait, I need to put that on my bucket list._ )

“Attaboy,” he says and just— _beams_ like his face is going to crack open, and Miles returns a tentative, watery smile of his own.

So, yeah, this mentoring thing is complex, terrifying, and frequently embarrassing, but it does have its perks.

-

The minutes tick by, and despite Miles’ best efforts, it’s starting to get harder to breathe again. Peter can’t really expand his chest without it feeling like there’s a ton of cement resting on top of him (and the sad thing is, Peter knows _exactly_ how that feels—like, anybody else’s hyperbole? Is Spider-Man’s _reference_ point) but taking shallow breaths is making him feel dizzy and just—really, _really_ thirsty.

God, he’d kill for a nice, sweating bottle of ice-cold—

“Hey,” Peter says, more to distract himself than anything else, “did you—didja know that… I was… fifteen too when—when I started this?”

Miles jerks out of what seems like a daydream. “What?”

“Fifteen,” Peter wheezes. “Me. Spider-Man.”

“Oh! Yeah, I mean, I figured.” Miles shakes his head. “I guess it’s still hard to imagine, you know? Spider-Man was my hero growing up, and it’s weird to think that he ever, like, stood at the edge of a building and almost shit his pants at the thought of trying to swing from it.” He flexes his hands. “I mean, I _know_ I can do these amazing things—and I’ve seen you do them so many, many times—but it’s like my body doesn’t know it yet, you know what I mean? It’s… it’s scary, and, and. It shouldn’t be.”

“I know… what you mean,” Peter says. “It’s a… a steep learning curve… but you’ll catch—catch up soon enough.”

Miles frowns. “Maybe you shouldn’t be talking so much.”

Peter grins. “Not… not the first time… somebody’s said that… to me.”

There’s a few moments of silence, before Peter ventures, “It helps… to know… why you’re doing it. I first thought… it was because… I was destined to—to join the Avengers, to… be like them. I… uh, I was stupid.”

“Well, a big part of why I’m doing this is because I want to be like _you_.”

Peter shifts uncomfortably, and rides out another wave of pain with gritted teeth. “Miles,” he says, voice low and despairing and hurting, like he can pack more than a decade’s worth of pain and exhaustion and guilt and _everybody I love dies_ into that one word.

“I know what you’re going to say—do your own thing; be your own man,” Miles says. “And sure, okay. But Peter—Spider-Man’s special and he always has been. I mean, you have all of these superheroes that pop in and out, but Spidey’s always _there_ , every day, every night for the city in spite of _everything_. I used to go to bed as a kid feeling better you were out there because I knew that, sure, you would help knock down alien robots the size of buildings, but you would also drive the boogeyman under my bed away if I called you for help. Because each and every one of us mattered to you just as much as the Avengers.” Miles smiles again, and this time it is full and radiant. “I want to be that too, Peter. What better way to start than to follow Spider-Man?”

Peter’s lost for words. When they get out, he’s going to get this kid a ton of ice-cream and hug him. And if he can’t afford the ice-cream, well, he’s just going to hold him like he’s never going to let him go.

-

Peter can’t really hear anything anymore over the roaring in his ears, but he can taste blood in his mouth, and feel somebody pat his face, like they’re trying to rouse him. Wait, when did he close his eyes and why can’t he open them? It’s weird.

A distant drilling sound and a lot of shouting finally get through to him over the roaring. His mask is back on—Miles was absolutely right, it does smell like stale burrito—but it does little to block out the absolute cacophony of noise that’s threatening to deafen him, and besides there’s this terrible, _awful_ pressure on his chest and if he can just get it _off_ he can move to some place that’s not quite so overwhelming—

Hands catch his before Peter can take the pressure off. “You do _not_ want to do that.”

 _Miles?_ Peter shifts restlessly, whimpers when it feels like somebody’s taken a chunk out of his side. He has to—he has to—

“Spider-Man.” Miles sounds surprisingly calm. “We’ve got you. _We’ve got you_. You can rest now.”

And so Peter does.


End file.
